I can’t seem spend five minutes browsing Facebook or anywhere else I go to connect with my fellow authors without seeing at least one meme or personal post about the horrors of writing synopses. And you know what? I never tire of it. Synopses are horrible. That’s something we can all agree on and relate to. But it got me to thinking about what other parts of the process we can agree on, or, even more interestingly, disagree on! Below, I’ve laid out some of the usual broad parts of the writing process, the general public opinion of them as best I can glean from writer’s forums, and how I feel about them myself. Whether you’re with the consensus, with me, or somewhere else entirely, chime in in the comments and share what your favorite and least favorite parts are. And let me know if I’ve missed any!World building: General opinion (at least among genre authors):

“It’s imagination in its purest form. It’s a chance to indulge the daydreaming habit that made us all writers in the first place.” My opinion:

It’s… not without its charms. I love the feeling of artistic discovery as much as anyone, and some of that certainly comes during world building. Lots of my favorite stories take place in very vivid, detailed, distinct universes (Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Delirium, DC, Star Trek), so there’s plenty of inspiration for me there. But you know how you feel when you’re reading a book that goes on for chapters and chapters describing and demonstrating all the details of the world without anything actually happening? That’s how I feel when I spend too much time building the world. I want to get to the story. Often I jump into drafting with a half-formed universe in mind, fill in the holes where the story demands it, and spend much of the second draft adjusting to make sure it all makes sense together and adding extra bits of color where I feel the environment not coming across.

Outlining:

General Opinion:

There seem to be two schools of thought on this: “Outlining is the easy warm-up level before the real writing.” And, “Who needs an outline? Planning things smothers my creativity!” Since one of these sides rejects outlining entirely, I’d estimate they average out to about two stars. My Opinion:

I’m not a pantser. I respect the fact that such people exist and that they can and do produce quality books, but I’ll never understand how. I’ve tried it, and I meander all over the place and end up either with far too many words that don’t say anything together, or unable to produce any words at all because I don’t know what I’m trying to do with them. For me, outlines are essential. Are they fun? Not especially. Easy? No. Give me a chapter out of an outline I’ve already written over the outline itself any day. Trying to give a story its structure feels to me like trying to wrestle Jabba the Hutt into a shoebox. But when everything does finally fit, that’s when I feel like I have a future book on my hands rather than some vague notions, and that feels great. Plus, outlining gives me my first look at a lot of the scenes I’ll get to look forward to writing in the next step.First draft: General Opinion:

“It’s great when it’s flowing, but this is where writer’s block happens, which is the worst part of writing.” My Opinion:

I love the first draft. It’s probably my favorite part. This is where I feel truly creative. This is where those moments that were one bland sentence on an outline come to life, where those dry resumes of characters become people you can fall in love with. This is where we get to answer the all-important question of fiction, “Why should I care?” I don’t daydream worlds to the extent a lot of people do, but I do daydream scenes, and putting them on the page is the heart of writing for me. I’ve been known to get blocked on occasion, but if I’m working on a story I’m confident in, and I’ve made it through all the other steps and done them right, it’ll usually be rare and brief in this phase.The next couple drafts:

General Opinion:

This part also seems to have a polarizing effect on people. “Oh no, now I have to mutilate my poor baby of a first draft!” Or, “Finally, the round of mistake-making is done! Now I get to make it good!” (This is my husband’s favorite part). Three stars sound like about where they even out? My Opinion:

I’m not on one pole or the other but right in the middle. I do love the feeling of watching my rough manuscript become a solid work I can be proud of. I’m also not immune to the pangs that come with changing parts of that first draft that I poured my soul into, but by second draft time, I usually have just enough emotional distance that I can do it and be happy about it, as long as I can confidently envision the better version this will create. So that’s not what brings this step down to three stars for me. What I lack in susceptibility to writer’s block I make up for with editor’s block. That dreaded feeling of staring at a blank screen actually hits me more often when I’m staring at a full one. Reading my manuscript, realizing that it could be good but isn’t yet good, and not being able to pin down exactly what I have to do to make it good, is the single most difficult part of the process for me.Proofreading:

General Opinion:

“It’s hard and boring.” My Opinion:

Okay, I’ll admit, I take this difference of opinion more personally than the rest. If proofreading is a part you feel you have to slog through to get back to the fun, creative parts, I won’t blame you for that. Hate it if you want to, just like any step on this list. Just don’t disdain it, and we’re cool. I’ve ranted before about how the importance of proofreading doesn’t get enough respect, and I’m sure I will again, but for the purposes of this post, I’ll just pretend that everyone in the world acknowledges how critical it is to the finished product and focus on how much fun we have (or don’t have) doing it. Personally, on top of feeling the need to defend its value, I also (sometimes) enjoy it. The fact that I was trained in proofreading from an early age, have done it professionally, and am quite good at it certainly has something to do with this. Technical details are the easy part. This is the part with solid, written rules that I know, the part that I can tell I’m doing right, objectively and without doubt, even when I’m in a pit-of-artistic-despair sort of mood. No, it’s not the most creative part, hence four stars instead of five, but it does give me a chance to read what I’ve written in its nearly finished form. Sometimes I’ve been over it so many times by this point that I can barely see the art anymore, another reason for only four stars, but the times when I can see it, the times when I look at something I’ve created and realize that I’m truly proud of it, those are some of the moments I live for, maybe as much as the initial first draft creating.

Synopsis and query letter:

General Opinion:

“They’re evil.” My Opinion:

Yes, they are. A thoroughly necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless. A novel that can fit on two pages without losing its soul is not a novel that ever had one. They’re part of the business, not the art, a necessary tool for communicating bare essentials quickly and efficiently, but that doesn’t make the necessary soul-sucking any easier or more pleasant. As I said, that’s something I expect we can all agree on.

Promotion:

General Opinion:

Another polarizer. “I get to goof off on Facebook professionally! I have the best job in the world!” Or, “I studied writing, not marketing. I’m not cut out for this stuff.” Three stars meet in the middle. My Opinion:

Again, I’m between the two sides. The necessity of self-promotion has put me in touch with a community of awesome people I’m happy to be a part of. The practice I’ve gotten discussing fiction on top of writing it has given me a lot of confidence, and I find satisfaction every day in logging on, looking at my hits, likes, etc., entertaining people how I can, and knowing that I have power over the fate of my career. But if I could, without consequences, spend less time than I do on promotion and more time on the fiction I’m in this for, would I? Yes, definitely. What say you, fellow writers? What parts of the process do you simply survive, and which parts do you live for?

Great post! It's always interesting to me to see where other writers stand on some of those topics. I am very close to your numbers, especially first draft (love every moment of it, it's like eating Godiva chocolates) and syopses/query letters (9th level of hell). I have a post on my blog this week about my own personal piece of writing yuckiness--the first five pages (http://www.blancaflorido.com/the-blog-2/)--not because I didn't like writing them but because of all the different messages coming at writers about them. After reading this post, I'd love to know how you feel about that part of the process.

In answer to your post about the pressure put on the first five pages:

The first five pages of a book certainly have to grab me, because every reading moment I can get is precious with an ever-expanding to-read list that I will never, ever finish, and I certainly beat myself up about making sure my first five pages will do that for someone else, but does that equate to immediate, literal action every time, as current conventional wisdom claims? Absolutely not!

Action is not immune to being boring. Far more often it's the narrative style or a charming detail of the universe that's being introduced that tempts me to stick around for the story. I'd like to think it's the same for other readers, and hopefully some industry professionals too, whether they say so in their advice or not.

As far as that affects my experience with the writing process:

When it comes to writing the first draft of the first five pages, I try not to think about the pressure that will be on them in the final version. I write them as they come naturally to get the draft rolling, have a lot of fun, and then I beat myself up over them in the later drafts. On multiple occasions, I've completely rewritten them from scratch in the drafting process.

Here's my take on it...
World Building - 2/5. I love the idea of creating new worlds but because of my time constraints, I'd rather spend my time writing about protagonists rather than a heap of stuff that won't ever make it to the book. Having said that, if I was writing full time, I'm sure I'd enjoy it more...
Outlining - 1/5. This is not because I don't enjoy it or even find it useful, I think it's invaluable, but I can't do it. I get bogged down. I need to be pushing the story forwards, even if I don't know where it's headed. I wrote a series of six novellas, and didn't decide on an ending for the series until halfway through the fourth book!
First Draft - 5/5. Love it. Can't get enough. I frequently ignore ALL the other steps just to do it, at a detriment to myself. I'm a seat of the pants writer, and just throw complication after complication out, and see which way the narrative twists.
Next Few Drafts - 3/5. Not as great as the first draft, but has it's moment, especially when you think of something great to chuck into the mix.
Proofreading - 1/5. Only 1 because I can't do 0. I can't do it. My brain rebels, only reading what I intended to write, no matter what is written down. Luckily someone has offered to proof all my work from now on! She's one of the good ones.
Synopsis - 1/5. Dirty, dirty. Like crushing a flower into a thimble.
Promotion - 2/5. The only good bit is getting to chat to other people in the same boat. Trying to talk myself up makes me feel ill.
Anyway, that's it! Looks like I'm not much of a natural writer, I just want to shove a story on the page. Ah well, at least it's fun!

Hey, if it works, it works! (And by "works" I mean "ultimately produces a finished product that makes you and readers happy.") I'd probably skip ahead to my next first draft even more than I do if I could write more than a few coherent pages without knowing where I'm going. For better and for worse, I cannot :)

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